A CAVALCADE OF WORLD LEADERS

Taranaki Daily News, 6 October 1934, Page 15 (Supplement)

A CAVALCADE OF WORLD LEADERS

(ABOVE the skyline of 20 years there rose huge shapes. Like statuary in Egypt, they were human in. aspect, but they surpassed all human size. They were the monarchies of the modern world. Among the monoliths there were three that towered above all others. Never in the annals of mankind had there been military despotisms so magnificent. On- the pedestals sat the three great emperors.

Amid the waltzes of the blue Danube that fascinated the metropolis of European gaiety, Francis Joseph, Emperor, of Austria and King of Hungary, aged 84, was tottering like a weary Titan to his inevitable tomb. His only son, the Crown Prince Rudolph, as a distracted lover, had blown out his brains.. His Empress Elizabeth had been assassinated by an anarchist. His nephew, and heir, Francis Ferdinand, had-been shot like a dog in the streets of Sarajevo. What if .the dominions and the dynasty of this venerable sovereign were slowly but surely disintegrating?- Francis Joseph had reigned for 66 years—more than half a century. Irreverent caricaturists might Exaggerate his side whiskers. The countenance also included that underlip which, in a Habsburg, is divine. To the end Francis Joseph upheld the prestige of the greatest family of rulers that the world has <Sver. knbwn. > . > To-day we read of telegrams in which “Willy” corresponded with “Nicky;”/- But it was not as “Nicky”’and “Willy” that the world of August; 1914, thought of their Imperial Majesties Nicholas, Tsar of all

the Russias, and William, All Highest Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia. ■■■'" 7'7':"■ 75

The armies of Nicholas had suffered defeat in the Far East at the hands of Japan. Nearer home, his police had to suppress revolution. But the dread of the Romanoffs still filled Asia as well as Europe with ah awe usually'reserved for deity.

Was not the Tsarina' a granddaughter of Queen Victoria? Were not-France and Britain the allies of the Tsardom? It did not seem to be conceivable that within four years Of catastrophe Nicholas the anointed would be dragged from the gorgeous corridors of his.palaces, sequestrated in a' humble house of a mining town ■—-called Ekaterinburg after the great Catherine —and there done to death; that ’little should be left of those Romanoffs save regalia exhibited as spoils of rebellion, mansions displayed ~as museums and vague rumours of certain pitiful relics—a few charred bones recovered from a well n^ar ; the scene of the executions and said to be preserved in a secret shrine somewhere in France. To-day we think of William the Hehenzollern as a busybody who

scrjbbled preposterous expletives on the margin of the State papers that affected the peace of the world. What the nations saw, 20 years ago, was the autocrat on his throne, and the vision was Byzantine in its grandeur.

*The mighty master of legions had a gentle neighbour to whom, accompanied by his Potsdam Guards, he paid a formidable visit. “Do you not think,” the said cheerfully, “that my soldiers are tall?” To which his hostess replied: “When we open our sluices the waters are deep.” The German Kaiser, uplifting his. mailed fist, did not foresee that a day would come when his protector and guardian would be a woman—Wilhelmina, Queen of Holland. Certain of the dynastic landmarks yielded to the thunderbolts and so survived the shocks. Kling George of England and King Victor Em-

In 1914 Mussolini, Hitler And MacDonald Were

Hardly Heard Of

manuel of Italy reigned in 1914 and still reign in 1934. The Japanese monarchy has not only triumphed over the transition but exploited it, and Hirohito-r-a Regent as Crown Prince-—perpetuates as Emperor his ancient lineage. Weakness has sometimes proved to be stability. The monarchies of Scandinavia are undefended, save nominally, by armies and navies. They were all but engulfed in the cauldron of slaughter that seethed at their very doors. But as the clouds of conflict drift slowly into the past, it is as if nothing in these countries had happened. We see King Christian of Denmark and King Haakon of Norway as placidly popular among their loyal peoples as ever they were, -and the aged Gustav of Sweden serenely enjoys his game of tennis.

.Most amazing of all has been the fate of King Albert of Belgium. In August, 1914, all was lost to him save honour, and there were sneers in Teutonic circles at the “lackland.” In 1918 all was restored. But none who read the horoscope of Albert at . any time guessed that

this hero of the war would lie for hours alone in death with no sentinels to salute him save the unknown soldiers.

On every side • the sovereignties were surrounded by an entourage of supermen on whose glittering decorations were reflected the splendours of the omnipotence they served. There were statesmen, there were generals, there were admirals, intermingling together at ceremonial functions and conversing in tones of irreproachable correctitude.

As we mingle among those glittering groups of distinguished personages we are conscious of a strange sensation. The faces that we see, the names that we hear, are often unfamiliar. The notables of 20 years ago are studied by the historian. But to the man in the street many of them were among the nobodies. • In Vienna we see a diplomat: of the old school at his desk. For years he. had wrestled with unruliness in the Balkans, and they accuse him of irresolution. This time, he says firmly, there must be, once for all, a settlement with Serbia. And Count Leopold Berchtold drafts and signs that drastic ultimatum, with a time limit of 48 hours, to which artillery gave the answer. Where is he now—2o years later? So complete is his obscurity that we need to be told whether he is still alive. In Berlin as in London, the government was trying to be liberal. The Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, was no Junker. In Frankfort his family had , made their money by banking. The Chancellor had contended against the domination of the general staff. j 1 For such a man there were no illusions. He knew well what war would mean. Flushed, angry and alarmed, he faced the British Ambassador. “Surely,” he cried, “you will not fight for a scrap of paper,” and the indiscretion was blazoned forth as an oriflamme wherever the English language was spoken. For a year or two Bethmann-Hollweg strove to restrain the submarines from their “frightfulness”; then, with a vain plea for peace on his lips, he was obliterated by the war lords. Forgotten, he died in 1921. In the St. Petersburg that was not yet Petrograd or Leningrad there was also a superman, a person of infinite charm whose negotiations seemed to be frankness itself, and only the critics suggested that such candour sometimes conceals. Sazonoff was the last of old Russia’s accomplished diplomats. There was a night that Sazonoff never forgot. The Tsar was appalled by the prospect of Armageddon. Why should mobilisation be total? Let it be partial, and all through those dark hours the sleepless men wrangled over the two words with the more impulsive war lords. Sazonoff and the Tsar were swept into the rapids. At Westminster we see a House of Commons crowded from floor to ceiling. One man alone seems to sit by himself, pale, motionless and downcast. He rises to the table and, for an hour, he speaks impromptu. “Edward Grey,” once said Gladstone, “there you have the Parliamentary

manner” —the oratory that is also conversation. It is so simple—this speech—and it seems to put .everybody else so utterly in the wrong. Yet that single hour of effective eloquence changed Grey from a young to an old man. It is the same House of-Commons, one day later, and another man stands at the box. His face is flushed. A voice, usually under perfect control, is breaking, and amid a memorable hush he reads. It is Asquith—and as syllable follows syllable it seems as if an unseen hand had passed over his countenance, leaving it white as the linen around his neck; and he sinks back exhausted. He has proclaimed what proved to be the death warrant of his favourite son.

For a year or two he led the nation. But his day was over and the last of the great Liberals, the most accomplished master of debate in our time, was left without a seat in the Mother of Parliaments. His party wrecked, his fortunes impoverished, Asquith died an Earl. We talk of the Big Four—how they won the war and how, as some say, they lost the peace. But in August, 1914, when the die was cast, not one of the Big Four was recognised as such. All of them were men of the future. Woodrow Wilson —it was two and a half years before he became an active part of the conflict. Lloyd George—he was still the protagonist of peace almost at any price. In the France of Poincare as President and Viviani as Prime Minister, Clemenceau was the tiger, not of the sword but of the pen. As for Orlando — he backed the Allies, but it was three years before he became Prime Minister of Italy. So with the generals. . To-day there are certain outstanding commanders with whose personalities we associate the war. In August, 1914, not one of these names was on the lips of the man in the street. ■The Frerich are grateful to Marshal Foch —the blue-eyed D’Artagnan of the Marne. But it was the immense bulk of Papa Joffre that, in 1914, seemed to be such a tower of strength. The British think of Haig. But their earliest reliance was on Sir John French. Allenby was a cavalry officer, none too happy in the trenches.

Hindenburg was the saviour of Germany, but what did the Germans think of him in August, 1914? He was a difficult old veteran whose best place was not on the staff but on the shelf. So with Ludendorff. It was months before he was appointed to be Hindenburg’s righthand man and even that was only a beginning.

The Germans staked their future on a name. Had not a Moltke created their war machine? Did not that Moltke work the war machine with the deadly certitude of doom? And here was Moltke’s nephew, following in his uncle’s footsteps. In the testing hour, not even the name of Moltke was enough. The nephew was already 66 years old. He was a sick man and his strategy was found to be unpunctual. He failed, and this time no German marched into Paris. Broken and discredited, Moltke succumbed to his maladies. One soldier rose majestic above the crowd. About Kitchener there was a genius hard to define. He was no great strategist. Even as an organiser he became impossible. What he possessed was—in one word—stature. In mind and body —even in Q his absurdities—he was big. You could not see him striding .up Whitehall and think of defeat. Thus do wd turn our eyes from the skyline of 1914 and glance, if only for a moment, to the parallel ridge of eminence in this present year, 1934. It requires an effort of the imagination to realise that the later supermen were all active in the world when’ the earlier supermen were shaken from the seats of the mighty. Mention a Roosevelt in those days and everybody thought of Theodore. No other Roosevelt was conceivable: Yet in the Navy Department, there was a Franklin D. Roosevelt —already on the way.

riedly for Switzerland. Trotsky was on his way.

There is a city in Northern Siberia called Turukhansk. It lies just outside the Arctic Circle, and there, in August, 1914, you might have seen a vigorous young man of 35. Only the police could remember how often he had been arrested and imprisoned and exiled, only to turn up again and resume his conspiracies. Joseph Vassarionovitch Stalin was on his way.

The Emperor Francis Joseph had many coachmen. One of them was called Masaryk, and Masaryk had a son. They wanted him to be a teacher, but, as a boy, he preferred the career of a locksmith and the blacksmith’s forge. However, he surrendered later to erudition and even to politics. In August, 1914, Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, president of Czechoslovakia, was on his way. In the Turkish Legation *at Sofia there was a military attache. Every man’s hand was against him and his hand was against every man. But he knew all about defending the Dardanelles. Kemal was not yet Mustafa the Glorious. But he was on his way. We look once more at the two skylines and wonder where will be the supermen of 1934 when 1954 is the year to be written about. Does the present skyline bound a tableland of security? Or is it merely a ridge between two abysses? Can we say that we have left behind us the Grand Canyons ,of war and revolution which break into the continuities of civilisation?